nswered. "You must know he is
Jerry's brother. At least, you must have a sneaking suspicion . . . ?"

"I have," he nodded. "The thing that can't sometimes does, and there is
a chance that this may be one of those times. Of course, it isn't
Michael; but, on the other hand, what's to prevent it from being Michael?
Let us go behind and find out."

* * * * *

"More agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,"
was Jacob Henderson's thought, as the man and woman, accompanied by the
manager of the theatre, were shown into his tiny dressing-room. Michael,
on a chair and half asleep, took no notice of them. While Harley talked
with Henderson, Villa investigated Michael; and Michael scarcely opened
his eyes ere he closed them again. Too sour on the human world, and too
glum in his own soured nature, he was anything save his old courtly self
to chance humans who broke in upon him to pat his head, and say silly
things, and go their way never to be seen by him again.

Villa Kennan, with a pang of disappointment at such rebuff, forwent her
overtures for the moment, and listened to what tale Jacob Henderson could
tell of his dog. Harry Del Mar, a trained-animal man, had picked the dog
up somewhere on the Pacific Coast, most probably in San Francisco, she
learned; but, having taken the dog east with him, Harry Del Mar had died
by accident in New York before telling anybody anything about the animal.
That was all, except that Henderson had paid two thousand dollars to one
Harris Collins, and had found the investment the finest he had ever made.

Villa turned back to the dog.

"Michael," she called, caressingly, almost in a whisper.

And Michael's eyes partly opened, the base-muscles of his ears stiffened,
and his body quivered.

"Michael," she repeated.

This time raising his head, the eyes open and the ears stiffly erect,
Michael looked at her. Not since on the beach at Tulagi had he heard
that name uttered. Across the years and the seas the word came to him
out of the past. Its effect was electrical, for on the instant all the
connotations of "Michael" flooded his consciousness. He saw again
Captain Kellar, of the _Eugenie_, who had last called him it, and
_Mister_ Haggin, and Derby, and Bob of Meringe Plantation, and Biddy and
Terrence, and, not least among these shades of the vanished past, his
brother Jerry.

But was it the vanished past? The name which had ceased for years, had
come bac